Tonsil Cancer Survivor - Becky Sadler 's Story Video

My name is Becky Sadler. This is my seventh year. I had tonsil cancer. I had discovered a lump in the side my throat, and for a while they didn't think it was anything. And then finally they did, outpatient biopsy and it came back squamous cell carcinoma. And then they went in, they do what they call Modified Neck Dissection and endoscopy where they look for where the source the cancer was, because the lump had been lymph planted had the squamous cell carcinoma and they look for the source of the cancer and they found that my right tonsil, even though my tonsil look fairly normal from just outside, inside was the cancer. So then I had to go through radiation treatment, which actually radiation treatment worked pretty well. I didn't have that much trouble so we came to the end of the radiation and I had some -- I had some problems because they give you what's called the boost at the end, which is little extra radiation to kill all the -because that radiation kills the bad cells and the good cells. So when I had the radiation, everything went fine. I had done all the pre-stuff, you have to do a lot of dental stuff and all. I did all that, but then for some reason, I had bad reaction to the radiation. And I have this aggressive radiation fibrosis, I have got some make up on it right here. You can't see it very good but all my neck and -- it just keeps progressing and I had lost my teeth and mostly the bone in my mouth. So I puree my food and but I get along fine. I mean I just keep going and I keep very active in things, I mean I have a lot of side effects. I have some other medical problems that go along with it. But I think the main thing is to keep positive attitude and just keep going. I mean I am going fishing tomorrow that probably in beach here they are having a surf fishing tournament and I'll be out there all day tomorrow fishing and I think coming to Relay for Life is keeping yourself relayed for life. I have -- I go on Flickr to post pictures and things. And Relay and my Flickr site, it says Relay for Life my yearly party because I consider this my yearly party because it -- when I had the cancer I was diagnosed in spring and I was in radiation treatment when I came to my first Relay for Life.

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